


acquired taste

by canadino



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 04:13:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3963979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canadino/pseuds/canadino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Killua learns how to taste again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	acquired taste

Over time, Killua learns how to taste again. After a whole childhood - a whole life, really, considering how young he is - of acquiring poison immunity and training his tongue to ignore the telltale signs of toxins and death, eating has been somewhat of a chore. His father chastises him for spending all of his first Heavens Arena winnings on chocolate, but when each box only gives him a dull hint of sweetness, he needs a lot to really enjoy it. The spiked soda from the Hunter Examination tastes like water and he is quietly relieved during the cooking challenge for having others to taste the food for him. But it isn’t until he finally leaves home with Gon does he discover the sorts of flavors he had been ready to live without.

They cook together in between eating out while traveling together, because while their licenses can afford it, Gon has occasional bouts of inexplicable longing for food combinations that no restaurant can provide. It is during one of these kitchen adventures that Gon learns of Killua’s predicament, asking him to check the sweetness of the sweet bread Gon knows how to make by heart and Gon is such a sweetheart he wants to make it to Killua’s preference and after it comes out of the oven and they eat a slice together, Gon makes a face and says, “Ack! It’s so sweet, it’s like eating straight sugar.”

“Yeah,” Killua says, although it tastes somewhat still bland to him. Gon hears the lie with his perceptive ears and makes it a personal mission to show Killua how to eat again. They start with wild berries, ones Gon picks while twisting into the inner most parts of bushes to get the ones so ripe they get juice all over Gon’s fingers. Gon has his own personal names for some of them that he doesn’t know the real names for and he knows which ones are sweet and which ones are tart and which are sour.

“Eating a lot will only give you a stomachache,” Gon says. “Coat your tongue with it and see if it goes through.” It’s how he teaches Killua to taste things he’s never eaten before. Gon knows almost everything about what is edible in the wild, how to catch certain animals and which parts are the tastiest. Killua thinks part of it is because he is no longer going through training and his taste buds are starting to repair themselves from the never-ending brunt of poison and acid treatments that he begins to slowly pick apart certain parts of flavors. His favorite is still sweet; he is a boy, after all, and he knows how to brush his teeth well to avoid getting cavities (not that they would hurt, but Gon is a stickler about those kinds of things, strangely). 

“It tastes good,” Killua says during dinner once, and he means it, and Gon is beaming. 

“It’s ‘cause we’re eating together,” Gon says. “Everything tastes better when you’re eating with someone you like.”

(The sweetest thing on his lips, in all thirteen years of his life, has been Gon’s kisses, because they make his stomach leap even though nothing is going in it and it makes his face flush and heat and the smile Gon gives him after fills him up that he thinks he could probably go without eating for a week.

He never does, though, because Gon makes eating a blessing.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and leave a comment if you liked it!


End file.
